Investigation of tensile, flexural and impact properties of Neem-Indian almond hybrid fiber based epoxy composites

Composite materials are used in place of conventional material as they reduce the weight of the structure and increase the strength. Hybrid composite consists of two or more reinforcing fillers of different properties. In this investigation, a Tri layer Hybrid composites of Neem and Indian almond fruit fiber were prepared using hand layup method. Neem was used in outer layer and Indian almond fruit fiber was used in inner layer and vice versa while fabricating the hybrid composites. The tensile, flexural and impact properties of prepared hybrid composites were studied. The results displayed that the tensile and flexural properties of hybrid composite made with Neem as outer layer increased by 6.8% and 5.5% respectively compared to that of hybrid composite made with Indian almond fruit fiber as outer layer. The improvement of tensile and flexural properties was due to the presence of high strength Neem fiber at outer most layers. Moreover, the impact strength of hybrid composite made with Indian almond fruit fiber as outer layer exhibited better impact strength (5.1 kJ m⁻²) compared to the impact strength of hybrid composite made with Neem fiber as outer layer. The impact strength enhanced due to the surface cracks of Indian almond fruit fiber as it absorbs more impact energies while loading and finally improved the impact strength of hybrid composite. (paper)